Tinplate Read online

  ‘With whom, lover mine? There’s Sally, who’s been hot for you ever since you worked here, you know that. And cool little Jennifer, the receptionist, could do with a little of your magic de-icer …’

  ‘No listen, Deborah, this is serious. Are you sober enough to take it in?’ I regretted saying that the second I let it out of my mouth.

  ‘I can take it in any time, big boy. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Oh God, Deborah, pull yourself together.’

  ‘All right, all right, all right. I promise.’ She coughed. ‘Tell me what you want.’

  ‘Fix a meeting for me with dear Derek, will you?’

  ‘You going bisexual in your old age?’ she sniggered.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, listen. I want to get some information from him. It’s very important. Say I’ve heard of a great opening for an Art Director in a London agency that might suit him down to the ground — big salary, car, and all that. Lay it on. Like to take him for a drink and tell him all about it. You know.’

  ‘I know. When do you want to do it?’

  ‘Tomorrow lunchtime. I’ll come over and pick him up.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll ask him, and ring you back. You must tell me what it’s all about some time over a … whatever you would like to have it over, with me.’

  I did not rise to her. Just said, ‘Thanks’ and rang off. She rang back five minutes later. Yes, Derek would love to come. Whilst Treasure was abroad, he was at a loose end. She asked if she could join us. I said, ‘No, it would be all boys’ talk.’ I won’t tell you what she said in reply, but it sure didn’t sound like girls’ talk.

  Nine

  ‘Do you miss it at all?’ He looked at me with his baby-blue eyes.

  ‘If you mean advertising, not one bit.’ I poured him another glass of Sauternes (his choice, not mine).

  He fingered the stem of his glass. ‘Don’t you miss the people though? Must be lonely just seeing other old toy buffs, isn’t it?’ He tried to make his question sound like a statement.

  ‘I do meet other souls, you know, once in a while. I am allowed.’ I grinned at him, but not too much, just in case. ‘And,’ I continued, ‘with you and Deborah as worthy exceptions, it was the people in advertising I could stand least. They are so used to hyping the shallow and ephemeral into something significant that in their private lives they seem to do the reverse.’

  ‘Oh,’ he replied, and didn’t follow it with: ‘I see what you mean.’ The vacant look in his baby-blue eyes said it all.

  Derek leaned back in his Windsor chair, crossed his long, rather bony legs, and looked around the small wine bar. His non-drinking hand drooped at right angles to his wrist. Must be the boys’ equivalent of a Masonic handshake.

  ‘But it’s the people I adore,’ he said in a poor man’s Noël Coward voice. ‘I never get lonely in advertising, I really don’t.’ He looked across at me. I poured myself another glass.

  ‘But your best friends aren’t in advertising surely? Nobody I’ve ever known has their best friends in the business,’ I said, trying to change the subject in my direction.

  ‘Some are, some aren’t,’ he said, begging me to continue talking about him. Suited me.

  ‘And are yours, or not?’

  He took a deep breath, and his chest seemed to go more concave. I couldn’t figure it out.

  ‘Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it.’ He looked up coyly. ‘My very best friend certainly isn’t. He’s a bit beyond advertising.’

  ‘Important, you mean?’

  He put his glass down, and leaned forward to me. ‘And wealthy, Peter. And I mean up to the deliciously manly eyeballs.’ He patted my knee. Ah well, all in a day’s work. He leaned back again. ‘He’s away at the moment. Abroad. It’s a drag, really.’

  I could not but agree with him.

  ‘When is he back?’

  ‘Not long. In a couple of days.’ He sighed, then continued, ‘In one way he’s a bit like you.’

  I was glad to hear it was only in one way.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He likes old toys too. Got a lot of them, but doesn’t publicize the fact. I think he’s worried about people knowing he’s a bit of a softie underneath.’

  I was starting to feel queasy, but I persevered.

  ‘I think I know now who you are talking about. He’s a perfect treasure, aren’t I right?’

  Derek blushed to the dark roots of his blond hair.

  ‘I’m not saying, am I?’ he replied, fluttering his eyelashes.

  I drank some more of my wine, then launched in.

  ‘I know of him through the toy trade. Heard he had quite a big find early this month. Eleven pretty valuable tinplates, from the south of France.’

  He looked slightly puzzled.

  ‘He hasn’t been abroad this year until now, so I think you must be mistaken.’

  ‘I think he may have procured them in Dover, or had them delivered to him somehow. Doesn’t matter really. I drink to him. Not often a collector is so very fortunate.’

  Derek relaxed again, and sipped his drink as if it were nectar.

  ‘Come to think of it, my friend seemed to be very excited about something about the time you say. Even more ebullient than he normally is. He’s wonderful when he’s like that; incredibly masterful.’

  ‘You mean, about a week and a half ago?’

  ‘Yes, I guess it would be.’

  ‘And you never found out why?’ I could hardly hide my impatience.

  ‘I never really ask him about his business affairs, things like that. I assumed he had made another killing on the Stock Exchange, or had a property deal go well. I never thought it might be toys. Suppose it could have been. All he said was that another of his boats had come in.’

  I could have kissed him — well, almost. An hour later I poured him out of the wine bar and back to the Willard, Jenks and Pursar agency, established 1928. I clanked back on the good old ferry to Studland. And while I was standing at the vessel’s rail, being nine years old again, the sun came out. And do you know something? For once, it was the same sun.

  *

  I only opened for a couple of hours that day, and I would have sold nothing had it not been for Bing. It turned out to be a gawp-ers and touchers time, so the shop always seemed to have a customer or two inside but no actual sales accruing. Just before five, Bing jumped on the counter and a fat man in a raincoat (it looked as if he slept in it), who had been gawping for nearly quarter of an hour, went over and stroked him. As he did so, his sleeve caught a neat stack of mint, boxed Spot-On diecast cars. The pile collapsed and four went onto the floor. To cover his embarrassment he bought one of them instantly for thirty-two pounds — an XKSS Jaguar.

  With trying to see that none of the gawpers and touchers half-inched anything as they gawped and touched, I had no real chance to reflect on my fortunes until the evening. And when I did, they seemed a little less rosy than the Sauternes had made them appear with Derek in the wine bar. However, there was progress to report, for Derek had now more or less convinced me that Treasure was behind the disappearance of my toys. And that was sort of satisfying, for two reasons: one, he’d struck me as a baddie the first moment I’d clapped eyes on him, and it’s nice to have one’s instincts proved correct, and two, he was just the kind of man I’d never had any respect for; born with a silver sledge-hammer in his mouth with which he would beat the rest of the world into obeisance to his slightest whim until his dying day. It was sweeter to think of his being a regular baddie than, say, Monsieur Vincent or Rankin or even the diamond fiddler on the run. And three, it didn’t half concentrate my mind to narrow the field down to one. Even if I were eventually proven wrong, I would have enjoyed the extra shots of adrenalin pumping through my otherwise rather confused system. And, merciful heavens, I could now postpone my Barclaycard attempt to search Rankin’s property. So I settled down to a quiet evening with Bing. Those toys just had to be somewhere amidst the Victorian steeples of Doom Abbey, for old toy
collectors almost never keep their previous reminders of youthful innocence secreted so far away that they cannot enjoy instant access to them whenever they feel like it — or whenever their adult consciences prick.

  *

  1 awoke to a loud ‘miaowowowow’, and I was sitting bolt up in my bed, my heart pounding like a piledriver. I saw Bing racing out of the bedroom door, and then I heard it. A banging, rattling noise. I tried to pull myself together, and picked up my watch from the table by my bed. It was a luminous quarter to two, and the banging and rattling continued. I suddenly realized why Bing had come upstairs and jumped on my bed (a thing he never usually does — at night). There was someone at the shop door.

  I put on my terry towelling robe with ‘Hotel Majestic’ embroidered on the breast pocket, and very cautiously went downstairs. I armed myself with the appropriate poker from the sitting-room, and went on tiptoe into the shop. I slowly pulled open the door to the length of the security chain and saw, to my delight and relief, the Queen of the Mynd, the strange, yet irresistible Arabella. I sighed, glad yet knowing there was little chance of sleep again.

  *

  It wasn’t until the sun was forcing its way through the curtains that we really got down to sensible speech, anxious though I was, ultimately, to do so. All I had gathered was that she had been with Treasure to a vintage toy auction in Geneva — separate rooms, thank God — and he had decided to come back early, after receiving a somewhat mysterious phone call, which he would not discuss with her. They had had a blazing row when they had got back to the abbey, apparently about his unbending attitude towards me, and suspicion about my being the mysterious intruder, and she had left and driven straight over. I showed my gratitude in the customary fashion more than once, and she did likewise. When I looked in her eyes, I could not believe she was a Dorset Mata Hari or Studland Salome. I think it’s at times like these, you should be able to tell. Shouldn’t you? Anyway, it was wonderful having her back, and I told her so.

  ‘I’m not back really,’ she said, sitting naked, cross-legged in front of me on the bed.

  ‘You mean because you’ve never really been away, or that you will be off again?’

  ‘The latter, I’m afraid.’ She took my roving hand and held it to her lips. ‘I’m not ready yet to settle.’ She continued, ‘I wonder sometimes if I ever will be. And yet …’

  I took a little heart in that I was probably in that ‘and yet’ bit. At least I hoped so.

  ‘Tell me something, little Miss Often,’ I said after a while, ‘have you finished with Treasure?’

  ‘I don’t know. Almost, but maybe not quite. I thought I had completely when I stormed out last night.’

  ‘But now you’ve made love with me, you’re not quite sure?’ I smiled at her, and she elongated her fabulously elegant and luxurious body alongside my bog standard version. She put her finger across my lips.

  ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘it’s got nothing to do with you, or love, or anything but me, I suppose.’

  ‘Will you promise to tell me when you’re over it?’ I asked softly.

  ‘I promise, as long as you promise to tell me when you’re tired of all this stupidity of mine.’

  I nodded, but she cut short anything I might have added by rolling on top of me. We did not speak again for a little bit.

  I felt a real swine for I could not really tell her that part of me (the sleuth bit) was glad she had not totally broken her association with Treasure just yet. But that was only part of me. And it wasn’t the part that felt the pain, sod it.

  *

  She left at eleven, and I was relieved to hear it was to her cousin’s that she was going. Apparently, she had a lot of pricking out to do to make up for her Geneva break.

  Directly her silver Golf was out of sight along the Swanage road, I locked up the house and walked the short way to the one village phone box. I dialled the right number and put in the right money. I was lucky. He was in.

  ‘Who is it?’ The timbre of his voice made the receiver vibrate.

  ‘A friend,’ I said, but not in my own voice. I’m not exactly Sir Laurence Olivier, but I am passably good at regional accents. This time I was Liverpudlian, a mixture of John Lennon and a trade union shop steward.

  ‘I know about those toys you nicked.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Who are you?’ I could tell he wanted to ring off, but could not afford to.

  ‘Never mind that,’ I Liverpooled, and I was afraid my accent was getting a little too stagey, so I began to tone it down. ‘I know you’ve got those toys. And I know you won’t want anyone else to know you’ve got them, will you?’

  ‘Who the blazes are you?’ he boomed again.

  ‘I told you, a friend. A friend who doesn’t want you to get into any trouble for pinching ’em, that’s all. There are eleven of those little playthings — those are the ones I mean.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘So,’ I went on, ‘as I know both of us would like to keep the whole affair our little secret, I think we should meet.’

  There was still no reply, and I was afraid he might have rung off. I pressed on, regardless.

  ‘I suggest the Tilly Whim caves. You know — they’re on the coast path, up from Swanage. I’ll meet you there in two hours from now. Two, exactly. If you don’t come, I’ll go straight to the police with what I know.’ Then I added what I hoped would be a clincher. ‘You’re not the only one with friends in Dover, you know.’

  I slammed the receiver down, and leant back, with relief, against the side of the phone box. I suddenly realized I was covered in sweat from my careworn head down to my trainers.

  *

  The two hours I had given him were ample time for me to get over to Lulworth, park the Beetle and cross the fields to the gap in the hedge, which commanded the view over the front of the house and its outbuildings. I was there in under half the time and, to my relief, the distinguished shape of the Silver Cloud was still in the barn. After a while, I wished I had brought my anorak, as it was one of those late spring days that had not made up its mind as to which season it wanted to be. Right now it felt decidedly like winter, and the wind across the field was quite cutting.

  About ten minutes after my arrival, I saw the wildly attractive Mr Ken Gates come out of the outbuilding farthest from me, walk around to a Land-Rover parked in the cobbled yard, start it up, drive down the drive and turn left towards Wool. I counted that as a bit of luck. But I had to wait a further ten minutes before I saw any movement from the house. And when it came, it sent a shiver down what was left of my spine. Treasure had a gun with him — one that looked big enough to blast some new Tilly Whim caves. (Actually, it was a normal 12-bore, but it took me by surprise.) He carried it with a natural ease, and then I remembered with horror, he was president of some marksmen’s club or other. He went over to the rear of his Rolls-Royce, fumbled with some keys, and opened up the special Harold Radford tailgate-cum-bootlid. He seemed to bury his head and hands inside the boot for a minute or two, and then reached back for the shotgun, which he had propped up against the rear wing. It, too, disappeared inside, and when Treasure stood up straight again, the beautifully lined interior of the boot seemed empty. He appeared to think for a minute, then closed the lid. I guessed he must have stowed the gun away in the special compartment I knew was a speciality of this huntin’ and shootin’ conversion.

  He reversed smoothly around in an arc, swished off down the gravel of the drive, and turned right onto the road, I guessed, that was leading to Swanage and his appointment at Tilly Whim caves. I reckoned that little expedition should keep him away up to an hour and a half. That left me a safety margin of only an hour for my appointment with his outbuildings. And maybe much less, for I would have to keep a rabbit’s ear cocked for the Corfe toucher; other farm-workers I didn’t worry about, because there’s something delightfully gentlemanly about them. If they found me scouting around, they would probably assume I was from the Min. of Ag., or the NFU, or was
some farming adviser old Treasure had called in. After all, wasn’t I dressed posh (other than the trainers) and didn’t I speak proper? That’s what I was counting on them thinking.

  Of the three main thatched outbuildings, I chose the largest first, and put on a pair of dark glasses in some sort of hope of disguising my appearance. I sprinted, in a semi-crouched position, down to its side entrance. Not hearing any shouts or any sounds from within, I entered. Had I been after a farm equipment thief, I might have found him here, for that’s all the barn contained, apart from an old Home Guard German aircraft recognition chart tacked on the wall.

  I exited flat up against the wall, like I’d seen in the movies, then sprinted across to the smallest of the three buildings, which was the one nearest the house. The oak door opened without even a creak, and I saw I was in some sort of dairy. But a dairy with a difference — a dairy set out as it must have looked in the early part of this century, with churns, strainers, vats and butter pats, muslin and all the shining apparatus of cheese and butter making. For a second, I had a little more time for Mr Randolph Treasure, but only for a second. There was a small door at the back of the Edwardian dairy, and it was locked. However, I presented my Barclaycard — it’s like they say in the adverts, it can open a lot of doors. Inside there was a circular cast-iron staircase, which I climbed with incredible care lest I kicked up any noise. At the top, another door, also locked, with a mortise. The keyhole could have taken a large Havana cigar with room to spare. I put my eye to it, but there must have been a cover over the other side. I sat down on the top step, and cursed Treasure and all his antecedents, before I finally decided on desperate measures.

  Desperate they were too, for I had to creep back to the first outbuilding to get the axe I had noticed hanging, with other tools of the farming trade, on the back wall. Yes, I have to admit my sleuthing lacks a little subtlety and finesse, but there’s not much finesse about being owned by a bank or a mortgage company either. Still, it was one better than being in the slammer or hospital, I suppose. And that’s where I was going if anybody caught me butchering the door to smithereens.